


L is for Legacy, Loss, and Lament

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alphabet Soup Challenge, Daniel Isn't A Well Person, Daniel Jackson Would Depress A Hyena, Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, Episode S7e15 Chimera, Episode Tag, Gen, Grim'n'gritty, Grimdark, Jack Is The Absent Referent, Missing Scene, Missing Scenes, Offscreen Missions, Realpolitik, What Would REALLY Happen?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: Maybe it would just have been better if Daniel had thought the consequences all the way through before he told his friends that Osiris was haunting his dreams.The antithesis of a nightmare is still a nightmare.





	L is for Legacy, Loss, and Lament

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sg_fignewton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sg_fignewton/gifts).



> Prompt: The letter "L" and the "implied mission" following "Chimera"... but not, alas, the follow-up mission debriefing Sarah Gardener after Osiris is removed, which was the _actual_ prompt. Ooops. A million billion thank yous to [Sixbeforelunch](https://sixbeforelunch.dreamwidth.org/) for their help with pesky research questions (and Russian grammar)! And [Dine](https://dine.dreamwidth.org/) for more research and moral support! 
> 
> All the mistakes are entirely mine, of course. As always. 
> 
> Also, there is a long and talky Afterword because I never know when to shut up.

"In retrospect" is the most depressing phrase in any language (and almost every language has it). Just about as irritating as "when I look back", another universal(ish) constant. Looking back. In retrospect.

Looking back, he should have realized far sooner that those dreams he was having had an...artificial component. Who dreams segments of the same dream night after night, after all, as if they're plugged in to some kind of Netflix of the unconscious? Who rewrites their own history so sweepingly (so consistently)? What slowed him down was that they weren't nightmares—instead they were the wistful "if only" version of his past. (Some Daniel Jackson somewhere has even lived it: the multiverse doesn't lie.)

The antithesis of a nightmare is still a nightmare, as it turns out.

In retrospect (looking back) it would have been—what?—when they decided to lay a trap for Osiris? Better if he/she/it/ _the snake_ had escaped? Better if Sarah had died? (Yeah, neither of those choices is a good one, but it turns out that Door Number Three is just as bad. Funny thing. Only not.)

Maybe it would just have been better if he'd thought the consequences all the way through before he'd opened his mouth in the first place. At least then the endgame wouldn't've been such a shock. (And Sam's boyfriend complicates everything exponentially; he loves Sam like a sister, but her timing has always sucked.)

He remembers a time when he wasn't quite this irritable. Of course, he hasn't really been getting a lot of sleep lately. Not the right kind, anyway.

He remembers listening to Sarah scream. The sedative they used to take down Osiris (oh, and somehow also _blow up the house)_ didn't last very long. Long enough for them to get her to the Mountain and into heavy restraints, at least. Janet tells him they'll do everything they can for Sarah. Jack tells him Osiris is just putting on a show. Daniel would just like to believe something (someone) without feeling like he's lying to himself. Jack drags him away from Sarah's bedside in ISO-1 (Sam's boyfriend—Paul? Pete?—is going into surgery; busy day all around) because his invaluable insight is needed: now that they've _got_ Osiris, what do they do with it? Save Sarah, kill Osiris, sure. But how?

Conference Room it is, and all around the table they go. What to do, what to do?

They'd call on the _Tok'ra,_ their eternal and faithful allies (who have finally—under _Tau'ri_ impetus, Daniel suspects—perfected a symbiote extraction process that involves surprisingly little killing of the host. And which they've been amazingly unwilling to share the details of). And in fact, General Hammond's already sent a message to the usual _Tok'ra_ listening posts, but the _Tok'ra_ are hard to get a hold of these days. And if they wait too long...

Osiris has a hostage, doesn't he?

Janet's there with them in the Conference Room (Doctor Warner is handling Shanahan's surgery). The obvious first choice is surgical extraction. Only the last time they tried that, it didn't work, and the _Tau'ri_ version isn't any more likely to succeed now. General Hammond doesn't want to give the order, and Daniel doesn't think Janet would follow it anyway.

It's Teal'c who finally reminds all of them about the obvious. Cimmeria. Where they first met the Asgard (in something Daniel tries very hard not to think of as a game preserve), and where the Asgard put up a replacement Hammer after the feckless _Tau'ri_ broke the first one.

Only the cure isn't much better than the disease (though at least it's shorter), because the Hammer works on the basis of inflicting agonizing pain—pain enough to force the symbiote to leave the host. And everybody knows a _Goa'uld_ can poison its host, and while the _Goa'uld_ are surprisingly cowardly, they're also vindictive. Osiris knows this is personal. Osiris knows Daniel loves Sarah. Osiris almost certainly knows about Sha're. (It's enough to tip the balance.)

So Daniel argues for waiting. For giving the _Tok'ra_ more time to respond. For trying to contact the Nox. Something. Anything, even though it's not a good time to try General Hammond's patience, what with their latest Civilian Surprise recuperating in the Infirmary, and the fact that they had to bring Shanahan in (and read him in) isn't going to reflect well on General Hammond in Washington. Daniel remembers when he didn't automatically seek the political subtext of events, but that was a different Daniel, and Osiris has thoroughly muddied the morphean waters there, bringing ancient grudge to new mutiny (or the reverse) in Daniel's dreams, so that the Daniel Jackson who automatically believed the best of people has been buried under one more layer of Machiavellian cynicism. (He really really _really_ hates the _Goa'uld,_ just for the record.) 

It's Jack who takes Daniel aside (everyone else pretending blindness) to tell him they have maybe twelve hours head start (at best) before the NID finds out they've bagged Osiris and shows up to take Sarah _and_ Osiris away—together—and that won't end well for Dr. Gardner (and possibly Earth). In retrospect, in retrospect (ah, hindsight!) Daniel realizes he should have listened for what Jack wasn't saying as much as for what he did. At the time, he just stopped digging his heels in about Cimmeria.

(He should have pushed harder for a Plan C. Easy to see that now. Looking back. In retrospect.)

And because they can't know what Osiris might do, because they can't know what condition Sarah might be in once she's freed, Janet's going with them. (Jack tells Janet that CMOs should not be on the front lines; Janet tells him that if they're taking her patient offworld, she's going too.)

They go from the gear-up room to the Infirmary to prep Sarah for transport. They won't tell Sarah where they're taking her. They can't be sure she'd hear, but they know Osiris would, and if Osiris knew they were taking the host _(Sarah!)_ to Cimmeria, it wouldn't end well. 

They all agree on that. 

And they don't have the luxury of debating the question to decide on best practices—it's gear up and grab your gun and go, you and your team and the nice lady who just about three years ago this October used to be someone who didn't believe in aliens and who thought the Egyptian pantheon was a dead issue. And nobody knows if they're going to get that nice lady back when they've gotten rid of Osiris. 

Daniel can hear Sarah screaming (now, still, again, always) the moment the elevator doors open on 21. There's a limit to how much sedation Janet can give her without killing her, and nobody's sure if there's another Minotaur in the Asgard Labyrinth (which could probably kill Osiris even if it wasn't sedated, come to think of it). Daniel runs toward the screaming, but Janet gets there first. Daniel arrives just in time to hear her tell Osiris that if it threatens Sarah's life in any way she will perform the extraction process here and now. (Daniel's certain at the time that Janet's bluffing. In retrospect—hindsight is always 20/20, quoth Jack O'Neill—Daniel isn't so sure. Or whether that would've been the better option.)

Sarah's screams alternate with Osiris's threats all the way to the Gate Room. (General Hammond's had the corridors cleared and the blast shields lowered. Bad for morale for anybody who doesn't already know to see what _Goa'uld_ possession is like, Daniel supposes. He isn't feeling particularly charitable at the moment.) Janet gives Sarah a last dose of sedative just before they take her through, because if she doesn't Osiris is going to be much too alert on the other side. (There's a blissful moment of silence as they pull the gurney through the event horizon.) Daniel's already decided what to do when he gets there. (In retrospect, possibly the only judgment call he made that he still endorses. Too bad he didn't take things far enough.) He joins Sarah (and Osiris) in the Asgard Labyrinth by the simple expedient of flinging himself across the gurney just before the Hammer's scan begins.

#

_"I am Thor, supreme commander of the Asgard fleet. The high council of Asgard has designated Cimmeria a safe world for developing sentient species, by unanimous decree era forty seventy-three twenty-nine."_

He's never been this deep in the Labyrinth, and Jack's mission reports are masterpieces of opacity (meaning short on details) so he can't use SG-1's first mission to Cimmeria as a guideline for what to expect. Also, being beamed sideways by The Hammer Of Thor _really hurts._ (In retrospect, bringing aspirin would have been a good idea.) Jack did, however, mention the "answering machine".

_"You were warned not to come here, under pain of death. For the crimes against the living host, and all those you have murdered and enslaved, the sentence is death. This is your prison. Your technology will not function here. There are no luxuries, no worshippers, no slaves to do your bidding, only basic sustenance and time. When you tire of this existence, go to the Hall of Mjolnir, and face the Hammer. There is no escape. Only the host can leave this place alive."_

Useful, except for the fact it doesn't provide directions to the Hall. But they can worry about that later. Daniel has just about enough time to crack a few lightsticks and toss them around, try his radio and discover that no, it still doesn't work in the Labyrinth, when he discovers that the restraint system that can be attached to a hospital gurney is not nearly as robust as the one that can be attached to a hospital bed. 

Osiris is loose, and Daniel hasn't had a chance to explain to Sarah that if she can get through the Hammer, she'll be free.

Moral support (and also backup) is two hours away, minimum.

In retrospect, he should probably also have brought another dose of tranquilizer.

He runs.

#

It's a Labyrinth, so you walk (run) in circles (and one built by the Asgard besides: every culture builds a different labyrinth; if it'd been _Goa'uld_ , he'd've had a fair chance at cracking it). After the first merrie sprint into darkness (stones are hard, who knew?) Daniel realizes he's still armed, and that might not be the most useful thing to be, since he knows he won't shoot Sarah no matter what (didn't destroy Osiris the last time he saw it, saw her, saw Sarah, when he might have decisively ended the _Goa'uld_ menace once and for all). He takes his gun apart and throws it away in pieces. It's only after he's done that he realizes he could've tossed it through the Hammer (if he could find it) to lure Osiris through it. (Maybe.) He's still got his knife, though. Maybe that will work as well. He doesn't want to toss it away, because he can't break it and what if Osiris finds it?

All these various decisions would be a lot more clear-cut if he could just _find_ the Hammer.

He won't think about the fact that if the world were kinder, it would be Amaunet stalking him through the darkness and not Osiris.

He keeps moving.

#

"Daniel? Daniel, help me. It's dark and I'm scared." Sarah's calling him. Her voice echoes (in a purely human way) off the stone. His first impulse is to answer. He stifles it. (At least he still has his watch. Ninety minutes minimum before he can count on backup, and gee: what if they're held up in traffic?)

"Daniel?" Is she (it) moving toward him or away? He can't tell. He should have brought breadcrumbs. Or a ball of string. "Help me. Please. Osiris is gone. I don't know what happened. I'm all alone. Help me."

It sounds like her. It _is_ her (whether she's alone in her head or not). Where's the harm in answering her? (Them.) Osiris doesn't have any weapons (they'll just ignore the fact that a _Goa'uld_ has literally superhuman strength). Jack and the others are on their way. If this is a trap, Jack can just rescue both of them. It isn't as if Osiris is going to kill him. Daniel's too valuable as a hostage.

And maybe Sarah's telling the truth. Maybe Osiris _is_ gone. Maybe the Asgard upgraded the Hammer. Maybe the two of them can skip the rest of the _grand guignol_ auditions and just go home.

(And maybe not.)

When he doesn't answer, there's silence for a while. Daniel stops, stills, holding his breath, listening intently for the scrape of foot over stone. For something. Anything. There's nothing. Of course there isn't. But somehow he can't give up waiting, even if standing here isn't getting him any closer to the exit. He checks his watch again. Not much change.

Think. 

The trap would obviously be designed to drop its victim into the center of the Labyrinth. Logically, if he can find something that looks like an outer wall, he should be able to just follow it around until he reaches the doorway. (Yeah, too bad this place looks more like a cave system than anything else.)

Sarah screams.

He runs toward the sound without thinking. It doesn't matter if it's a trap. He can't take the chance it isn't. 

"Sarah! I'm coming!"

A second scream chokes off in the middle. 

A few moments later Daniel realizes one important fact. When he'd said there were no weapons here in the Labyrinth, he'd completely forgotten about rocks.

He flinches away just fast enough to turn a lethal blow to the head into a glancing strike against his shoulder. It's still enough to knock him sprawling. He's trying to get to his feet, but his right arm is numb and it throws him off balance. All he can do is scrabble backward. "What do you think you're _doing?"_ he yelps. He realizes sounds more indignant than terrified. Probably not a good move.

Osiris glares at him out of Sarah's eyes. In her SGC-provided scrubs, Sarah looks more like a grubby grad-student than an alien (false) god.

At least until her eyes flash.

"You will pay for what you have done, _Tau'ri!"_ Osiris says. It's (she's) (he's?) (the pronoun assignment is making Daniel's brain hurt) still holding the rock.

"Yeah, I don't think so," Daniel answers waspishly. (It's always fun to watch the Bad Guys' faces go blank when he or Jack starts a round of "Taunt The Archvillain". The _Goa'uld_ aren't used to backtalk.) "Oh, sure, you can probably kill me, but guess what? You'll still be here. And in case you still don't know where this is, welcome to Cimmeria. Maybe you've heard of Thor's Hammer?"

"You lie!" Osiris throws the stone at him. It misses. (Daniel thinks of telling Osiris that he throws like a girl, but that would be некультурный, and Osiris wouldn't get the insult.)

"Do not!" Daniel answers, which is lame, but witty insolence isn't the point. The point is keeping Osiris yelling at him from _over there_ until Daniel can scrabble to his feet and run. Which he does. (Shoulder really hurts, but nothing's broken. Probably.)

Osiris's howls of rage don't sound remotely human.

#

The first time Daniel faced the fact that somebody was about to _kill him,_ he was nearly paralyzed with... not fear, but shock. Over the course of his (pre-Stargate) career, a surprising number of people had been furious with him to the point of yelling and even threats, but things had never reached the point of hitting—let alone actually killing. And the first time it had, he'd been...

Stunned.

Things have changed. (For that matter, he stopped keeping count of both the death threats and the near-death experiences about six months after he'd joined the SGC.)

The point here is to stay out of Osiris's way. And find the Hammer. Both things are harder than they look. He suspects Osiris knows the way to the Hammer, because it's herding Daniel either in a specific direction, or away from a specific location. (It's hard to tell which, here in the dark.) At least Sarah knows there's a way for her to escape Osiris. He holds onto that. And onto the knowledge that help is coming. Well-armed snarky help.

But he's already tiring. _(Surprise Plot Twist! Exhaustion!)_ That's Osiris's strategy, he realizes. A _Goa'uld_ can keep its host going for hours. Days. And aside from anything else, Daniel's going to have to sleep sometime. Yeah, not before the others get here (probably), but if Osiris wears him down enough, it can catch him. And then it'll have _two_ hostages.

He wonders what's keeping Jack and the others.

#

_'James James Morrison's Mother / Put on a golden gown. / James James Morrison's Mother / Went to the end of the town / James James Morrison's Mother / Said to herself, said she: / I can go right down to the end of the town and be back in time for tea!'_

They say mathematics is about solving for the variable. Okay, sure, maybe, but Life's about that, too. You take everything you know, piece it together, and the shape of what's missing is the shape of the answer. (More or less.) (Close enough.) (In retrospect.)

Jack is late. (Don't think about that.) But after an hour (or more) of being herded around (stalked, pounced upon; Daniel's still trying to decide whether he's the Coyote or the Roadrunner), Daniel has a pretty good idea of the route Osiris is trying to keep him from taking. Great! So to reach the Hall of Mjolnr, all he has to do is get past Osiris. (Easy, right?) (Sure it is.) (Just start at the beginning, go on until you get to the end, then stop.)

He goes back to where he (they) started from (hoping it really is the last place Osiris will think to look for him) and spends a certain amount of time making interesting noises (oh, and setting fire to the gurney, too, because it never hurts to overachieve, right?) And when he figures Osiris is heading that way to find out (a) what the hell he's up to, (b) if somebody else has shown up here in the interim, Daniel creeps quietly down the one pathway Osiris really doesn't want him to take. 

And then he runs.

_'Now all roads lead to France / And heavy is the tread / Of the living; but the dead / Returning lightly dance...'_

Running has been a motif of his life since long before the Stargate beckoned. Run away from the bullies, run away from the mob, run toward your parents and get there too late. Run toward scholarship, run toward truth. Run to forget the failures, the betrayals, the losses. Just run.

(Don't look behind you. They might be gaining.)

He can see a red glow washing over the rocks ahead. It's from the Hammer, and he knows that means he's almost there. Good thing, since he's running out of options fast. (He's really going to have to have a word with Jack about unscheduled detours when he gets out of here.) Once he gets past the cairn of rocks up ahead, he should have a straight shot.

"Surely you did not imagine I could be so easily tricked... _Daniel?"_ Osiris steps into his path even as Daniel tries to backpedal (in the most literal sense of the word), flesh recoiling from the thought of colliding with traitor alien plundered flesh, meatsuit zombie dead-alive, leering at him, secure in its victory. All it has to do is reach out and grab him. And even if he gets away, hey. There's always next time. Or maybe it'll wait a few days and kill him _(dispossess him)_ in his sleep.

Then its face twists, and for a moment, it's Sarah looking at him. Her lips move soundlessly, a message: _Run, Daniel._

Daniel runs.

#

Running toward, running away, he used to think there were destinations but that was only one more fallacy to be debunked through the science of motion. The Red Queen runs as fast as she can just to stay in the same place, and Daniel went through the looking-glass once, was a queen's pawn once, his life isn't merely metafictional, it's a cautionary tale, unfabulous fable, a metaphor (meta for) those who are about to die.

And if the fate of the universe doesn't hang upon the outcome of an afternoon of Track and Field (he's never liked the thought of playing chess with Death), its local cluster does. He's been king of infinite space, but he didn't have to be there to see it. He's bounded in a nutshell. (Him and all the other nuts.)

Osiris is barely a step behind. It snatches for him and misses; he feels Sarah's fingertips skate across his back. If he had any attention to spare he'd shudder, but right now breathing's taking everything he has. He can see the Hammer just ahead. He's close.

Closer.

Closest. 

And then he's through—tripping falling stopping sliding through the dirt like a baseball player into home base and when you're at the edge of death isn't it your _own_ life that's supposed to flash before your eyes? Choking, gasping, getting to his knees. Gagging for air. Struggling to look up. Struggling to _see_. And Osiris, like an interstellar Wile E. Coyote (at least now he knows which of them is which), is too enraged, obsessed, or just not thinking clearly enough to _stop._ It's caught in the Hammer. 

_(Sarah's caught in the Hammer.)_

Her face twists— _its_ face twists—in agony. Look of shock, look of betrayal; who (what) is Daniel seeing? Or is it just a(nother) mirror?

"Sarah! Sarah! Come on! You just have to get through the door! You'll be free! You can do it!" His words are punctuated by gasps for air as he struggles to his feet, still hunched over, pilloried upon the metabolic rack of oxygen deprivation, but he has to tell her. She has to know. She can be free. _(Oh Sha're. Oh my love.)_

Her eyes bulge. Her mouth gapes in a soundless scream, the tendons standing out on her neck like guy-lines. Blood drools from her lips, trickles down her chin. Even now, Osiris could pull her back through the doorway—except that Sarah's fighting back. Daniel staggers forward, reaches into the coruscating light, takes her hand. Her fingers close over his.

And he slides his hands from palm to wrist, and her fingers (holy palmers) dig into his arm, and he pulls her to him with all his strength. Her answering scream (action and reaction) is wet and clogged; she falls against him, twitching and spasming, eyes wide, mouth wide, struggling (failing) to breathe. Her blood spatters him and—despite himself—Daniel flinches.

She's going to die. She's going to die right here and he'll have been the one to kill her.

She's choking to death.

Choking—

And he hauls her unresisting body up against him, back to front, and wraps his arms around her, hooks both fists under her diaphragm, tightens his grip as sharply as a blow and _pulls up_. Her feet leave the ground as he arches backward. Her head whips back, her body curls forward, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, she gags up the rough beast. 

It looks horribly like a segment of intestine. It's still alive. It tries to squirm away.

He drops Sarah. She collapses, folds, falls, as he lunges for a rock. The whistling suck of air into her lungs is counterpoint to the squelching thud of his blows. He hammers at Osiris's body until long after it's only a stinking smear of jelly on the alien earth (when it's gone he remembers that he still had his knife, but that would be too surgical, too civilized, and to touch it pierce it pin it to the ground like a butterfly caught was more than he could bear), and only then does he turn away and take Sarah in his arms.

#

There was a forest fire between the Labyrinth and the Gate, and so Jack and Janet and Teal'c and Sam had to go the long way around, but they got there in the end. (If it can't be done, send SG-1, the team that puts the "fun" back into functional insanity.) Daniel can feel the weight of Jack's displeasure as they hike back to the gate. Sarah lies on the salvaged gurney, unconscious. (Sam says that's normal. Janet says Sarah's vitals are good.) What Jack won't say—not with Sarah alive and free—is that Daniel risked himself pointlessly, risked Sarah, could have died, could have been _taken_. Jack was there when Sha're died, when Amaunet died, when Share's body was placed beneath the sands of a planet that would shortly thereafter cease to exist.

And so they move in silence. And then they're home.

Sarah sleeps.

Sam says that's normal.

Janet says it's normal.

Daniel feels the weight of Jack's displeasure.

But he's wrong, wrong, wrong _again_. His entire life is a catalogue of missteps and false starts; he should have learned their lesson by now but he hasn't. Never will. Jack was angry, but there was more in him than anger, than the constant simmering irritation of the cauldron in which military fire and civilian ice are eternally brewed. Maybe Daniel already knew what Jack was going to say. Maybe that's why Daniel avoided him, seriatim, through check in and check through and showers and scrubs and Infirmary. All the way up until the point where he was dragged away from Sarah's bedside once more, forced down to the Conference Room to give his invaluable situation analysis and contextual input on this latest milestone in their war against the _Goa'uld_.

To discover what's going to happen to Doctor Sarah Gardner.

"The NID believes Dr. Gardner can be a valuable resource," General Hammond says. Grammar is a renewable resource: the passive voice tells Daniel that General Hammond's opinions on the matter are known to be irrelevant. "The Pentagon is concerned about the possible security risk she might represent in her current condition. The President has instructed me to convey his sympathies to Doctor Gardner and to ask for her cooperation."

Janet starts to speak and changes her mind.

"And what might that involve?" Daniel asks. Mild, so mild that Jack puts a hand on his arm. He shrugs it off. Where was Jack when Jack might have been of some use? Jack has never had someone he loves taken away, cored and pithed and made a helpless spectator to atrocities so sweeping they vex to madness. (He remembers Skarra after he was freed; what Skarra said and wouldn't say. And Jack loved Skarra, and Daniel refuses to allow that love any equivalency to his own.)

"The Stargate Program maintains a convalescent facility in Virginia," General Hammond reminds him (as if it hasn't loomed as a vacation destination in Daniel's world for years). "Dr. Gardner's condition would be...assessed. She would be debriefed—"

"She would be _interrogated,"_ Daniel says flatly. "Because she hasn't gone through enough. Because the NID thinks she might be _useful."_

"Daniel." Jack's voice is soft as dust.

"No!" He shoves away from the table. "No," he repeats, this time to Jack. "You— You're— You're going to do whatever you want, but I am not going to, you're not going to be able to—" He stops. (Oh god, he's so tired.) "Can't you stop them? Can't anyone stop them?" He hears the pleading in his own voice. He can't remember a single time it's ever helped.

"Dr. Jackson, this command will do all within its power to ensure that no further harm comes to Dr. Gardner," General Hammond says. "I have already explained that she needs to remain here until Dr. Frasier agrees she can safely be moved."

"Yes, sir. Thank you." (Please, sir, may I have another?) Capitulation is the price of doing business. Pretend you believe them when they lie. Heroes, monsters, pawns. Good men and true, and what General Hammond doesn't say is that The Powers That Be _need_ this to be a win, need information, need any edge Sarah can give them. And if their need erases hers, erases _her,_ it's an equitable trade. _'It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.'_ "I'm going to go down and sit with her. I don't want her to be alone when she wakes up."

The weight of the words no one says is nearly enough to break him. Someday they will be enough.

#

Time passes. Sarah sleeps. (ISO-1, scene of a thousand lost battles and ambiguous victories.) Daniel holds her hand. Machines beep hopefully and others mutter mutinously; the hum and stutter of the fluorescents overhead is almost soothing. He spins futile scenarios of escape through his thoughts. It would be easier if someone was in the wrong here. Even the NID is only stupid and greedy, another jackhammer government agency rushing in all full of passionate intensity. (It's not that the best lack all conviction; it's just that they're outgunned.)

Sarah actually looks relaxed as she sleeps. (He hopes her dreams are good ones; hopes there's something good in all of this.) What will he say to her when she wakes up? Comforting lies? The truth? (The truth is too horrible to be said aloud: being "disappeared" by a foreign power for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.) He doesn't have the opportunity to marshal all the pros and cons (to fight and lose another battle in the country of himself), because she's finally starting to wake. "It's all right," he says immediately. _(Liar!)_ "You're safe."

She sits up. He imagines the slow ache of muscles returned to the control of their rightful owner. She looks around, eyes wide. He's the only familiar thing she sees. "Daniel?"

"I'm here," he says. "It's all over. You're free." _(Ding, dong, the witch is dead.)_ Simple words, suitable for fairytales, for stories where evil is vanquished and good triumphs every forty-two minutes. Let her believe the fiction instead of the reality of iron bars and locked doors and incarceration for her own protection. 

"I'm so sorry," she says. Her eyes fill with tears. He puts his arms around her. She nestles against him—familiar interlocking of bodies, reclamation of a shared past—but he feels the tiny fierce trembling of her body. "Hush. It's not your fault," he answers, because how could it be? _(You'll remember what Osiris did for the rest of your life.)_

"I couldn't stop it," she says, and Daniel imagines—landscape traversed in nightmare—a tongue shaping unspeakable words, a body performing unimaginable acts, and all along the watcher—the _self_ —unable to look away. "We're going to get you through this," he says soothingly. _(The NID will be here soon; Janet can't keep them out forever.)_ Daniel holds her. He strokes her back. He makes impossible promises, and when the NID comes at last he will tell her what her fate is to be, that he is not her hero, not even a fellow victim, but instead the far-from-innocent bystander who looks away and says that someday she'll see this was all for the best.

The only thing they can do.

Inevitable.

_(Pro publica.)_

_(By my hand and for the good of the State.)_

In hindsight.

In retrospect.

Looking back, he sees there were a lot of things he could have done better. 

There always will be.

###

**Author's Note:**

> I quote a lot of stuff in this, but usually not accurately. For example, the line "He's been king of infinite space, but he didn't have to be there to see it," is one part "Hamlet" and one part the promo poster from ["Ice Pirates"](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/) (Totally underrated movie. You should see it.) But occasionally there are longer works which are even presented more or less as quotes. " James James Morrison's Mother / Put on a golden gown. / James James Morrison's Mother / Went to the end of the town / James James Morrison's Mother / Said to herself, said she: / I can go right down to the end of the town and be back in time for tea!" is from ["Disobedience"](http://users.umiacs.umd.edu/~ridge/local/disobedience.html) by A. A. Milne. "Now all roads lead to France / And heavy is the tread / Of the living; but the dead / Returning lightly dance..." is from ["Roads"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57265/roads-56d23a98e9981) by Edward Thomas. Daniel is an eclectic reader.
> 
> As for the story itself...well...it was _supposed_ to be written to the prompt about debriefing Sarah after she was de-Osirised, but I thought that begged the question. You see, when I rewatched S7e15 CHIMERA (okay, I rewatched only intermittent halves of it, because Stalker Pete, and my rants about how people who _really_ work at high-security installations live their lives and about what would have actually happened to that jejune TPTB self-insert once he started trying to pull Sam's jacket must await another day. You probably aren't missing much. Honest.)
> 
> *ahem* Where was I? Right. CHIMERA. Okay, so when I rewatched it and also grabbed the transcript, well...it doesn't quite say _how_ they got the olive out of the martini, as it were. Could be the Tok'ra, could be the Nox, but IMHO if it had been either one, Sarah would not have been drooping lily-like _sans_ Osiris upon Daniel's BDUed shoulder at the same time Pete was recovering from surgery. And the only de-snaking method the SGC could reliably employ within a 6-8 hour time span would be Thor's Hammer. 
> 
> So that's what I wrote about. AFAIK we never see Sarah Gardner (canonically) again. So god knows what actually happens to her. She's probably off in the same asylum they put Orlin in. It's not just a wonder that Daniel sleeps at all (quoth Teal'c)—it's a wonder he hasn't gone on a six-state killing spree yet. 
> 
> PS: "некультурный" means, more or less, "boorish" or "uncultured". It's a much worse insult in Russian.


End file.
